


Cocoa Call

by WeDidItKiddo



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Bucket of Rice, Bundt Cake Shenanigans, Christmas Eve, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Miracle, Christmas Spirit, Expiration Dates, Fix-It of Sorts, Gift Crisis, Great Flour Disaster of 2019, Hershey's Cocoa Powder, Indirect Mention of J, Palm Tree Necklaces, Phone Call, Platonic (whoops), Tackiest of Tacky Gifts, Tessa Attempts to Bake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:46:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21671692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeDidItKiddo/pseuds/WeDidItKiddo
Summary: Objectively, Scott Moir can be a little daft sometimes. Which is exactly what prompts him to call his former skating partner in the middle of a Christmas gift crisis.
Relationships: Scott Moir & Tessa Virtue, Scott Moir/Tessa Virtue
Comments: 6
Kudos: 50





	Cocoa Call

**Author's Note:**

> I'VE BEEN WAITING TO POST THIS SINCE DECEMBER 4TH.
> 
> Okay, now that we've got that out of the way, I'm sure you can tell I'm excited about this one. Outrageously so. Also, hello there, long time no see!
> 
> Most of this fic came to be in January of this year when I decided to jot down 1,4K words of dialogue on my phone at 3 am and woke up the next day feeling like it was all a fever dream that never happened - hence why I only just got around to finishing it. It's yours now, so I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> (Totally stole that line from Dermot Kennedy - who, if you haven't already, you should TOTALLY CHECK OUT. You'll love his music. You can come back and yell at me if you don't.)
> 
> (But only if you don't.)
> 
> (Anyway. Read on.)

_Tessa’s kitchen, London, Ontario_

_December 23, 2019_

The Great Flour Disaster of 2019 unfolds with all of the gracefulness of a blindfolded bull charging into a china shop and destroying everything in its path.

In this case, the bull is Tessa Virtue attempting to bake, the china shop her kitchen, and the main casualty the massive glass jar with flour that was, up until a moment ago, still standing on her kitchen island.

Her elbow knocks down the jar. Figures. One minute she’s triumphantly pulling her homemade Bundt cake out of the oven, the next she’s staring at what used to be the hardwood kitchen floor and has turned into a snowy landscape with a potentially lethal glass shard feature.

It’s almost funny how, in the two seconds it takes her brain to process what just happened, not even her own mind allows for a moment of conviction that this isn’t her doing.

None of that. The immediate, poignant thought that flashes through her brain is the following:

 _You should have fucking_ known _, Virtch._

And she did, which is why every damn item that went into the Bundt cake was measured and double-checked with an almost neurotic attention to detail earlier that afternoon.

She bought a cooking thermometer to check the temperature of every ingredient, for Christ’s sake.

She followed the instructions of her late grandmother’s Bundt cake recipe to perfection. If only they had come with a big, flashy warning that no woman under the name of Tessa Jane Virtue should be allowed in the kitchen, she never would’ve attempted to make that Bundt cake in the first place. 

Anyway. The Flour Disaster. She starts the clean-up process by tiptoeing to the hallway to get the vacuum and put on some shoes, not wanting to risk slicing her foot open and serving her grandmother’s Bundt cake with a side of O positive.

She’s just located the vacuum when her phone starts blaring in the other room and kickstarts a series of rather unfortunate primal reactions, the first of which is to flinch so sharply she drops the vacuum in the no man’s land between the living room and the kitchen.

Next, she pivots to the couch with genuine curiosity and an underlying unsettlement that steadily grows into worry as the first verse of _Gangsta’s Paradise_ kicks in.

_“As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I take a look at my life...”_

Finally, she takes the dive to couch to catch the call before the ringtone fades out, shoes on the crème carpet be damned.

“Hi. Go ahead.”

As far as greetings go, that one was worthless, but Scott doesn’t care. 

“Say, hypothetically, you’re looking for the perfect gift for a lady friend of yours, would you go jewelry or something more sophisticated?”

She can immediately tell this call is strictly business, one of three indicators being the fact that he actually performed the physical act of searching her name in his contact list and pressing the call button.

(The other indicators are 2) the lack of acknowledgement that her greeting was indeed worthless and 3) the combination of _gift_ and the current date, the get-trampled-by-Christmas-shoppers-in-the-isles-of-Hudson’s-Bay-th of December.)

“Scott Moir, are you in a mall at this very moment?” She drags the vacuum into the kitchen and puts him on speaker on the only square foot of clean countertop, glancing up at the schedule that’s stuck to the fridge.

She has precisely three hours until her mom and siblings get here for their annual Christmas get-together. Three hours to decorate the cake, lay the table and change her sweatpants for the dress she’d picked out for the occasion. (Jordan is bringing the appetizer, her mom the main course and the snacks are really just a Hail Mary directed at Kevin and Casey.)

Three hours, one of which she can assume is going to be spent talking Scott through gift options if she isn’t careful.

If he means business, so does she. 

“Hypothetically?” Scott asks, and she can’t figure out if his voice has suddenly shot up about three octaves or if her phone is making it sound like it has. 

“Sure,” she says, crouching down to gather the remnants of the glass jar and dump them in the trash. “Hypothetically.”

Hypothetically, he’s going to ask her what to get his fiancée for Christmas. Hypothetically, this is completely fine.

“Well, hypothetically... yes. White Oaks.”

He’s in a mall. Two days before Christmas. Boy is out on a suicide mission.

“I’m three near-death experiences and one existential crisis in and I still have nothing,” he adds, sounding like he’s in the middle of his second crisis. “Help, please.”

“Sounds to me like someone is nailing the procrastination game.” She doesn’t even try to keep the grin out of her voice; honestly, who would be able to? “How many gifts have you already bought, exactly?”

“Is that any of your business?”

She looks down at the disaster that is the current state of her kitchen floor, deciding he doesn’t get to have what’s left of her dignity and crush it to pieces. “It is if you decide to call me while I’m in the middle of decorating a Bundt cake, yes.”

His laugh is loud and unexpected, even to him, because he stops himself abruptly and leaves a dramatic pause. “Virtch, are you telling me you’re in the kitchen? Cooking? Does your family have health insurance in case they leave the house with food poisoning?”

_Yes, I am, and yes, they do, asshole._

She barely refrains herself from picking up a bunch of flour and chucking it into the air at the mental image of him. No one’s ever going to let her live down her resume of ruined dishes, are they? 

“Don’t try to divert from the topic, Moir. We were discussing your poor holiday choices and even poorer gift buying skills.”

“Which I still need help with. I’m serious.”

“Okay, where exactly are you right now?” She gets back up and takes him off speaker, leaning on the countertop to stare out the window at the snowstorm outside.

(Because staring out of windows is guaranteed to help her come up with gift ideas. Duh.)

“I’m—”

A high-pitched, mechanic dog bark cuts him off before he’s able to say anything, and Tessa slowly raises a brow.

“Scott, are you in the toy aisle?”

_Please, not that kind of toy isle, please, not that kind of toy isle, please, not th—_

“Uh – okay, yes, I might’ve promised my nieces and nephews I’m getting all of them a toy for Christmas eve. This is me trying to be a contributing member of my family and failing to even - _how do you turn this damn thing off_ – get a present for a five-year-old.” He sighs, and she imagines him in the middle of Calendar Club chomping down on his nails and clenching his jaw, the entire frazzled Scott Moir starter pack. “I’m telling you, Tess, all the toys they make these days are just pure crap.”

See, even when he’s frazzled and astronomically late buying his family Christmas presents, he still manages to make it look more endearing than anything. At this point, it’s really just offensive to the Canadian population as a whole.

“Go for L.O.L. Dolls, Poppy is obsessed with them,” she suggests. “And if you really want to be the cool uncle, I’d suggest getting all of them a hover board. Or take each of them out on separate days for a one-on-one date with uncle Scott where they get to pick whatever they want, that works too.”

She leaves a pause, allowing herself a moment to wallow in the delusion that this is the point in the phone call where she could just decide not to go down That Road. Knowing full well she doesn’t have a choice in the matter anyway, but ignorance is bliss.

Eventually though, taking that road is significantly less gut-churningly uncomfortable than she would’ve expected.

“But that’s not the reason why you called, is it?”

“Errr – no. About the hypothetical lady friend.”

“Uh-huh.” She blinks rapidly a few times and swallows hard – okay, so maybe there is some discomfort after all, but it’s only minor. Thumbtack-sized. Discardable. “In this hypothetical universe of yours, do I happen to be a guy looking for a gift for my fiancée?”

He doesn’t acknowledge her question for a while, which makes for a very tense few seconds of inward cursing and wishing she could take the words back.

Until, of course, it becomes clear that he hasn’t heard a word of what she said.

“What was the name of that company you worked with? The one you designed those rings for or something?”

She wrinkles her nose, denial kicking in hard again. “You mean Hillberg and Berk?”

“YES! Do you think you could hook me up? What’s your personal favorite?”

If this were a horror movie, right about now would be the moment when it’s completely obvious to everyone but the main character that going down those stairs to the pitch-black basement where the monster is hiding _is not a good idea, Scott._

“Scott, do you really want to give her a piece of jewelry that has _The Tessa Virtue collection_ engraved in it?” A bubble of laughter shoots up her throat the way it tends to when your body realizes the hilarity of a situation before your mind does, and Scott goes silent on the other end. 

“Oh. Fuck, I didn’t think this through, did I?”

“No, you didn’t.” Her smile at this point is so wide, the skin on her face is stretching painfully. “Besides, that collection sold out like last year. But don’t beat yourself up too much. It’s not like you had a lot of practice with me as a lady friend.”

“The no gift rule was pretty fucking convenient, if you ask me,” he grumbles, and she has to laugh again. He’s at that tolerable level of grumpy where he wants you to think he’s funny just to make himself feel better, and it’s totally working.

She shakes her head a little at herself, tucking the phone between her ear and her shoulder and picking up the vacuum since he seems to be too distracted to either carry on the conversation or end the call.

She manages to hoover up most of the flour before she hears another mechanical roar on the other end of the line, this time with more of a T-Rex vibe, and she stills with the phone still pressed against her shoulder. 

“You’re not going to walk out of that toy store without a gift for yourself, are you?”

He leaves a pause, either to realize he’s still on the phone with her or to roll his eyes and grin, both of which are equally plausible scenarios.

“Who do you think I am, a responsible adult who can walk past the outdoor games section and not get anything for himself? I thought you knew me better than that, T.”

Yes, she does. Which is why that question was, admittedly, superfluous. But at this point, the entire conversation seems superfluous.

She grabs both oven mittens from the kitchen island, bracing herself to start the precarious act of dumping the Bundt cake out of its tin. The make-or-break moment of this entire baking endeavor (literally). “Do you sometimes think we’re living our childhood through our nieces and nephews?”

She notices a slight change in background noise on Scott’s end of the line, which is enough to be able to tell he’s on the move again. “What makes you say that?” he asks, his voice accompanied by the beeping of a cash register.

Her eyes dart to the living room, where the colorful lights of the Christmas tree are going absolutely berserk in the fourth setting per Poppy’s annual request. “Well, right in this moment, I’m looking at one of my three Christmas trees and I’m debating with myself whether I should add a fourth one next year or if that would be a little excessive.”

“Virtch, are you growing a forest? Who the hell needs four Christmas trees anyway? Unless you’re decorating them with candy, of course, which would change the game majorly.”

The Bundt cake slips out of its tin right then, which gives her just enough time to gasp loudly without ruining the entire dish.

“Oh my GOD, a candy Christmas tree! Scott, you are brilliant!”

There’s muffled laughter, which, really, she can’t blame him for. “Christ, T, you have officially lost the privilege to call me out on my childish behavior. Seriously though, why three trees?”

His voice drops to a loud whisper, and if she didn’t have her phone case digging into her cheek, she’d think they were having this conversation face-to-face. “I’m in line with a whining kid and four sets of stressed-out grandparents, I can use the distraction.”

“Alright.” Switching back to speaker mode, she puts her phone on the kitchen island next to the stand with her iPad. “Before I tell you the reason behind them, I want it to be clear that there was only supposed to be ONE tree...”

“But?”

“A few years ago, I couldn’t decide between an all-white Christmas tree and the pretty red ornaments I found at Canadian Tire, so I went with both.” She slides the cake into the freezer to let it cool and grabs a stick of unsalted butter and a lemon, feeling a flutter of anxiety at the realization that this is the umpteenth make-or-break moment where she could very well ruin the entire cake with her attempt at a lemon butter glaze. 

“Okay, that makes two. Why the third one?”

Grateful for the distraction, she starts juicing the lemon in a bowl. “I suddenly really liked the colored lights, but they didn’t go with the ornaments I bought for the other two trees. Besides, the reading nook needed some festive decorations anyway.”

He snorts, loudly. He never shies away from snorting loudly in public. “Yeah, because it’s of the utmost importance to feel the Christmas spirit in an area of your house you almost never use. You saw an excuse and you went with it, Virtch.”

Her eyes flick up at the black screen of her phone. It would really be more practical if they were having this conversation via Face Time. “And what about it? When _you_ finally replace your Leafs bedding with something an actual adult would sleep in, in your _own_ house, we’ll talk.”

Instead of sounding offended, his voice promptly deflates. “I love how you use the word ‘when’, not ‘if’. That’s more faith than I’ve been able to muster in the past few months.”

“I always have faith in you, kiddo. You just have to see it too.”

The one thing she doesn’t have faith in right now is her ability to melt the butter without burning it, which is why she juices the lemon until there’s no lemon left to juice. Only then does she get out a pan for the butter. 

“Well, in that case... go with the candy tree next year,” Scott says. “I won’t drop by for hot cocoa if you don’t.”

She grins at the pan of melting butter, freshly squeezed lemon juice at the ready. “Hold on, let me grab my planner so I can try to fit you into my schedule.”

“Very funny, T.”

“Hey, you were the one who told the entire world that I was the funny one. You gave me a title to live up to.” She adds the lemon juice to the butter, feeling inwardly proud at making it this far without setting the kitchen on fire. 

“Because ‘most decorated figure skater of all time’ wasn’t cool enough, huh?” he says.

“Are you ever going to stop rubbing that in people’s faces?”

“Yours is the only face I can rub this in without coming across as cocky, so no. I gotta let it out one way or another.”

She turns and rolls her eyes at her phone, suddenly grateful they’re _not_ having this conversation via FaceTime. The thing is, though, that even when he’s being cocky to her privately, she can’t really blame him for it.

After all, how many people get to brag about the fact that they won the Olympics?

There’s another dip in their conversation when Scott makes the trip from Calendar Club to Tim’s for a well-needed coffee break after she semi-convinces him Claire’s is _not_ the place to get jewelry, giving her the opportunity to finish the glaze for the cake.

By the time she’s pulling the Bundt cake out of the freezer to start decorating, she’s about twenty minutes behind schedule but feeling prouder than ever that the glaze actually looks edible – almost forgetting that Scott is still on the phone with her. 

“What would you like?” he asks out of nowhere, making her flick her eyes back up from the cake.

“Me?”

“Yeah. I mean, you’re a girl, eh?”

Remarkably bright observation. Oh, what life could’ve looked like if he’d figured that out sooner.

“Would you like perfume or bath salts or something?” he goes on, clueless as ever. Making her wonder if he landed his engagement between a night out and a few bottles of wine. “Jewelry?”

“Scott, I—”

“Look, I wouldn’t be asking you this if I didn’t really need your help.”

She stares at her phone and then turns to look out the window, her last resort. How is she supposed to answer that question when the best gift anyone’s ever given her is a bucket of rice?

“Buy her something that comes from your heart,” she says eventually, making herself no more useful than the first result of a Google search would’ve been. But this is one of those moments when you tell someone what they need to hear, not what they should hear. “She has to know you put careful thought into it. If you’re going for jewelry, get her something that will remind her of a special moment you shared. Bath salts might be dangerous, because smell is a very tricky thing – unless you know what she likes. Do you?”

“Not really, I... argh, I suck at this. I know she doesn’t like the fruity scents though, like the conditioner thing you have.”

There's a thumbtack-sized sting in her throat, but for some reason it makes her heave a dry laugh this time. “ _Right._ ”

“But jewelry might be a good idea,” he says, cleverly brushing over her reaction. “Maybe I could get something with a little palm tree, as a reminder of her home base... or would that be too tacky?”

_God, yes. Get her the little palm tree. Tacky as hell. She’ll love it._

“Honestly, Scott, you gotta figure this one out for yourself. Trust me, you can’t go wrong with something that comes from the heart.”

“Oh, trust me, I can.”

“What are you—”

“The gift basket of expiration dates? Does that jog your memory?”

It takes an inhuman effort not to snort so loudly her neighbors can hear her when the memory surfaces again. For her sixteenth birthday, Scott Moir thought he’d be the cleverest kid at the party and gift her a basket full of the most random items of food. Though the canned beans and corn were rather odd, no one suspected it was anything more than a harmless joke, until a closer investigation of the items showed that every single one of them expired on her birthday.

Yes, that’s right. Scott had spent every post-practice grocery run in the months leading up to her birthday collecting items (any, really) that expired on May 17.

It was mental, to put it lightly. And weirdly endearing. But there’s no way in hell she’s giving him the satisfaction of admitting that now. 

“Look, if I were to be… y’know, engaged to someone, I think I’d prefer making a memory over something wrapped in non-recyclable paper,” she says, finishing the glazing and taking a moment to admire the result. “Something like a surprise night out with just the two of you. You could also make a blanket fort in your living room and watch a Christmas movie or something.”

“Every Pinterest dream come to life,” he grunts sarcastically. 

“Oh, shut up. It should be something that shows her you care about her. You can’t buy that in a store.”

“Thank god I have you, T,” he says, his voice drooping with sarcasm. “What would I do without you?”

“Perish and die,” she deadpans.

“Very funny.”

She smirks evilly, if only because of the satisfaction that he sounds genuinely annoyed now. Serves him quite right for putting off his Christmas shopping until now.

“Where are you now?” she asks when she notices a change in background noise.

“In the book shop for my niece. She’s obsessed with Harry Potter, but Danny won’t buy her the entire book series.”

“Are we talking about your ten-year-old niece or the six-year-old?”

“Ella. The six-year-old.”

“Aha. Well, in that case, we’re on the same page. Danny can get lost.”

He hums approvingly, clearly distracted by his mission to hunt down the Harry Potter series. Tessa takes that opportunity to tap the screen of her phone; they’re a little over twenty minutes into this phone call now, which is more than quadruple their previous record.

If anything could’ve prompted this, it’s the holidays. And the pending preparations for his wedding in July, which are already in full swing if she can believe Jordan.

(When it comes to information everyone wants to keep under wraps, her sister is like the granny of the family: she knows everything. Always.)

“Were you ever expecting something?” he asks in the middle of her suddenly contemplating her own past relationship, which pulls her right back to the present. “You know, for a birthday or something? In the beginning?”

She squints at her phone, thinking about her answer for a moment. “No. I knew we didn’t do gifts, and for good reason, Scott. You would have died of a stroke if we did this gift buying thing for every single Christmas or birthday we shared.”

It feels weird, talking about these things like they're all in the past. Realizing they’re not going to share any Christmases or birthdays anymore, which they never really did in the first place. But it still stings. A thumbtack-sized cut in her chest.

Or maybe she just misses him more than she’s used to.

She clenches her teeth, something she’s been trying to avoid ever since their mental prep sessions for the Games. “You already gave me twenty-two years,” she says, deliberately keeping her voice level.

_Take that, tacky palm tree._

“Yeah. I know.” The background noise seems non-existent for the briefest moment, which makes his voice sound even clearer in her kitchen. “Thank you, though. I think I might have an idea for the perfect gift.”

Under normal circumstances, she would’ve asked him what he decided on, but the thumbtack is lodged in her throat now and she focuses all her energy on perfecting the little gingerbread houses that go on top of the cake to distract herself.

She wonders if this is where he’s going to end the phone call, because he probably should. She also wonders if she’ll have to be the one to wish him a Merry Christmas and cut things off, since history has shown she’s better at that stuff than he is.

Well, used to. 

“Seriously, T,” he says. “I owe you one hot cocoa.”

His words keep her from reaching for her phone to round off the conversation, and she smiles like he’s in the room with her. “Only one, huh?”

“As many as you’d like.”

“I’ll hold you to it,” she says, because they both know she won’t. And that’s okay.

Actually, it’s more than okay. This _call_ was unexpected, which is... more than okay.

“You’re one in a million,” he says, a sigh in his voice.

Surely he’s hyping up her role as Christmas gift advisor a little too much. Must be the caffeine kicking in.

“You know it, Moir.”

“Hm?”

“In sickness and in health, in stupid decisions and even stupider decisions...” A grin creeps onto her face as she waits for his response, which is immediate.

“Yeah, yeah, all that crap. That doesn’t mean I have to like you, though.”

There's a flutter in her chest; euphoria, cheekiness and nostalgia all wrapped up in one. “No, but it means you love me.”

Fuck caution, eh? In spirit of the holidays and all that.

At least, that’s what she tells herself this is, because it couldn’t be anything else.

“Of course I do, Tess.”

“Kinda don’t like you, though.”

“Kinda don’t like you too.”

“I’ll give you a ring when I can see about my schedule,” she says, and the thumbtack digs a little deeper into her throat because she knows this is where she should’ve ended the call.

If they were strictly childhood friends catching up, she would have pressed the red button and felt accomplished, as if he were a chore she just crossed off her list. 

But that’s the thing, isn’t it? They’ve never fit between a strict set of lines.

“Maybe sometime after New Year’s,” she adds, because she already killed the joke about fitting him into her schedule the minute she decided to mention it a second time. Staring intently at a loose strand of fabric on her oversized sweater, it’s not her eyes that start to burn; it’s her chest.

It’s not a sharp burn. It’s subtle, like the hum of a distant truck coming closer. Too far to tell what it is, but too close to dismiss it as nothing.

“I’ll keep you to it,” he says, and someway, somehow, this time she knows he will.

The thumbtack stops digging into her throat, bringing with it the relief of humor in conversations like these. “Right, asshole. We both know your track record of catching up with people sucks.”

Let’s face it; they’re never going to have a serious conversation about this. Nor should they.

“If I remember correctly, that’s the case for both of us, Virtch,” he says darkly, but her insult has prompted the humor in his voice as well.

“Oh, really? Care to remind me of a lunch date I missed?”

“My track record of keeping track of those things _is_ shit, I will say that. Anyhow, my phone is about to blow up in my hand. I should probably go.”

The corners of her mouth twitch; she appreciates him for using that as an excuse instead of his steadily growing phone bill or the fiancée he still has to buy a present for. “Okay, well, I’ll see you for that hot cocoa. Good luck with the rest of the gifts.”

“Thanks. If you can spare me a slice of cake, I would love to judge your masterpiece. I’m sure it’ll be delicious.”

Her eyebrows shoot up briefly at the lack of sarcasm in his voice this time. Plus, considering a homemade cake has an expiration date of only a few days, he just committed himself to coming to see her before the Christmas period is over, which makes this call so much more than a new record. 

“I’ll have to ask Poppy,” she says. “She’s usually in charge of the desert distribution.”

“Tell her I’ll give her twenty bucks for a slice.”

Oh, he’s _committed_ committed now.

“She’ll be offended to hear you think you can bribe her with money, but she’ll gladly take it.” Her eyes dart to the clock on the wall, another round of anxious butterflies fluttering up her stomach. “Look, just remember one thing: if you have the option to choose between tacky or not tacky, go for the latter.”

“Not tacky. Got it.”

“Now get out of that mall before you get trampled. I’m serious.”

“I will. Talk to you later, T. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas to you too.”

She ends up pressing the red call button on her screen before he does, and the silence of his absence penetrates the kitchen as if the snowstorm that’s raging outside just entered her house uninvitedly. She stands at the island for a few more seconds before she promptly decides to trade silence for compartmentalization and blast some 80s songs, so loudly she nearly misses the arrival of her mom and siblings two hours later.

By the time she proudly presents the Bundt cake around nine o’clock (Kevin asks her if she bought it in a shop and refuses to believe her when she tells him she didn't), the only remnant of the conversation with Scott is the slightly prickly sensation in her throat when she tells Poppy about the twenty bucks, who considers the offer for a total of two seconds before she nods excitedly and jumps up from the rug by the fireplace to take on her job as cake distributor.

It isn't until much later, when her family has left and she's changed into her most comfortable set of Christmas jammies and cozy slippers, that the doorbell rings unexpectedly for the second time that night. She looks up from the cloth she's using to wipe down the coffee table with a frown, slowly getting up to shuffle to the hallway.

In the time it takes her to get from the living room to the front door, "unexpectedly" grows into "a bitch has a thousand expectations that better be met or else", but she doesn't realize that until she opens the door and her stomach grows heavy with disappointment when the only thing on her front step is a single plastic tub with—

Hold on.

She crouches down to pick up the tub. Hershey's cocoa powder, the good kind.

She carefully cracks open the lid, feeling her face going full Grinch when she spots the post-it note that’s tucked into the powder.

 _Happy birthday, asshole,_ the note reads. _Welcome to 32. It sucks, you’re gonna love it._ _For twenty-something years of putting up with me. S_

She snorts; so much for never calling each other names. The burn in her chest is suddenly back, the truck seconds away from rounding the corner.

When she finally reads the date on the back of the tub, the buzzing in her ears overpowers any awareness of how cold it actually is on her front step.

**17 MA 2021**

It took him roughly seven years, but after all this time, he might've finally given her something that comes close to matching the bucket of rice.

Speaking of a freaking Christmas miracle.

**Author's Note:**

> This is possibly the most fun thing I've written in a while, mainly because I've been struggling to put words on a page. (Yep, writer's block can really be as simple as that.) I hope you enjoyed it, whether you are in the Christmas spirit right now or just looking for some distraction from life.
> 
> As for my bucket list fic: I have 22K unpublished words sitting in my Word document. It's terrible. Once I piece those together, I should get a few more chapters out. At any rate, thank you for your patience if you decide to stick around, and if not, can't blame ya. :)
> 
> Happy holidays! Happy December! Sending you all my love. Be safe out there.


End file.
